Vice President of Grants Management (LJAF)

Laura and John Arnold Foundation; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) seeks a visionary Vice President of Grants Management to lead the creation of a centralized grants management operation across multiple portfolios. This role offers substantial autonomy to design, implement, and optimize grantmaking processes within a pioneering, founder-led philanthropic organization.

You will drive the alignment of investments with LJAF’s strategies, ensuring rigorous learning, evaluation, and capacity-building to expand impact and scale

Responsibilities

• Establish and lead a best-in-class centralized grants management operation across LJAF portfolios.
• Shape grantmaking operations at the heart of a founder-led philanthropy.
• Use LJAF investments to inform strategies and build capacity for collective strategic impact.

Job description

Vice President of Grants Management (LJAF)

Organization Overview

The Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF ) was created in 2008 to improve the lives of individuals by strengthening social, governmental, and economic systems. LJAF’s mission is to seek evidence-based solutions that champion policy change in order to maximize opportunity and minimize injustice. LJAF addresses pressing issues related to public safety, criminal justice, health, education, and governance and partners with communities to develop solutions that lead to systemic change.

LJAF’s co-founders, Laura and John Arnold, are signers of the Giving Pledge . They are committed to giving away the majority of their wealth during their lifetime and to using their time and philanthropy to maximize opportunity and minimize injustice in our society.

With an endowment of over $2.2 billion, LJAF has a bold vision to stimulate new, creative ideas and approaches to critical problems affecting our nation. To date, LJAF has primarily supported research and has provided technical assistance in its areas of interest . As LJAF has evolved, its emphasis has shifted to policy reform as an effective way to have the greatest impact on systems and the people they serve. In fact, the Arnold team is currently in the final stages of exploring a more progressive, expansive corporate structure that will position it to better leverage its resources to drive even greater impact.

This is an exciting moment in LJAF’s organizational evolution. LJAF is growing its team and investment portfolio to meet its desire to tackle and solve complex inequities in this country. Considerable thought and research have been invested in designing a new, holistic, organization-wide grants management operation that will advance LJAF’s growth and bold vision. This new department will be led by the future Vice President of Grants Management.

The Vice President will have tremendous autonomy and freedom to establish and build a best-in-class centralized grants management operation to support and further advance LJAF’s important work across multiple portfolios. This is a rare opportunity to shape the grantmaking operations at the heart of an ambitious, cutting-edge, founder-led philanthropy. The Vice President of Grants Management will play an instrumental role in enabling LJAF to learn from its investments, inform its strategies, and build its capacity for collective strategic impact.

LJAF is an equal opportunity employer, committed to a diverse, multicultural work environment. LJAF welcomes a diverse pool of candidates and does not discriminate in employment on the basis of age, race, creed, gender, religion, marital status, veteran’s status, national origin, disability or sexual orientation.